English Speaking Employees

Bop

In our facility we have about 550 employees. Of that number about 150 are Hispanic. I want to know if it is legal to say in hiring that we need a certain number, ie 5 English speaking people, when we have had a number of Latins trying but we do not want their population to get out of balance in view of the fact that we only have one Bilingual person in a staff position?

Theresa Gegen TX

There is a good article about English Only rules in the workplace in the Q&A section if you go to the hrhero homepage. Look it over. This is a hot button issue with the EEOC, so I would be very careful.

The bottom line is that the ability to speak English must be job related. Hiring a few more English speaking employees probably won't help you unless they are bilingual.

You may want to consider offering your employees classes in English as a benefit if they are interested and it could be done affordably. Or you may want to consider designating "lead" employees who are bilingual.

Good Luck.

John Phillips TN

This is a question that is still unsettled. It will depend on the jobs which
the employees are doing and how important to the jobs speaking English is.
Perhaps we should talk about this.

John Phillips, Tennessee Employment Law Letter 423/785-8325

Gillian

Take care with this one. As stated, probably illegal. The suggestion by another person to require bilingual leads is a good one, unless of course, you have leads who are not and they are doing the job. As a caucasian who is bilingual, learn Spanish. The relationship that you will have with your Spanish speaking employees will be immeasurable, just by their knowing that you are doing this.